“This is how far we have come!” Pablo Casado proclaimed from the Congress rostrum. He then recounted his speech most praised by his own and rivals. It was on the occasion of Vox’s motion of no confidence in October 2020. Casado surprised by scoring distances with the extreme right after almost two years of avoiding attacking it so as not to bother a possible government partner and voters who were one day his and that the popular ones are still trying to recover. another time a partner of New Generations, pearls like this: “We say no to that Spain with clubs, in black and white, trenches, anger and fear; no to that anti-Spanish monstrosity that you sponsor. ” Casado released what he had been keeping, without biting their tongues: “It’s not that we don’t dare or that we have given up; it’s that we don’t want to be like you. ” Will the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo address Vox with the same forcefulness in the motion of no confidence that will be voted tomorrow? and register in Congress?
With that speech, Casado rose somewhat in the polls (less than Vox), but it was not the turning point that some predicted. The PP has eaten Ciudadanos, a jibarized party and plunged into confusion (the new leadership will vote against censorship, although Inés Arrimadas wanted to abstain). But the popular ones do not make a dent in Vox, which maintains a strong degree of loyalty among its voters. Feijóo, very much in his style, tries to hide and pretend that the extreme right does not exist. The motion of no confidence allows Vox to regain prominence, although presenting a candidate for the presidency of the Government not controlled by the party can give rise to surprises. Ramón Tamames, an 89-year-old economist and former communist leader, will take the podium to explain his own government program. The PP cannot go out in a storm against a character who represents the Transition or dispatch Tamames with the harshness that Casado used with a former PP employee like Abascal.
This time the popular will abstain, compared to Casado’s no in 2020. Therefore, whoever is now the spokesman for the PP (Feijóo is not a deputy) will not deliver a speech as harsh with Vox as he was then. Feióo wants this trance to go as unnoticed as possible, but that leads the PP to ambiguity and irrelevance in a motion of censure, which is always a relevant political event even if it does not prosper. It is not surprising that Feijóo tried to convince Tamames not to lend himself to what the PP considers a “pantomime” and a “ridicule” that only Pedro Sánchez can take advantage of, as long as he does not make any slips during the debate. .
Indeed, Vox’s maneuver only has advantages for the socialist leader. It diverts attention from issues such as the only yes is yes. And when a vote of no confidence is lost to a minority government, it comes out stronger. Only if you want to highlight a leadership or highlight another rival, as Vox wanted to do with Casado, does an operation like this make sense. It is likely that Sánchez will come out of the motion of no confidence with more votes than in his investiture. He will be able to show off that marker among his European partners and establish himself as the containment dam of the extreme right, like Emmanuel Macron against Marine Le Pen.
Hence, the PSOE does not follow the advice of the PNV to intervene briefly in the debate to give Vox the minimum role. In any case, citizen distancing must be avoided because the extreme right feeds on the discredit of politics above any other consideration. As Casado told Abascal: “The time has come to move from anger to something more constructive.” He didn’t know then that he wouldn’t be the one to try. Tamames asked Feijóo for his opinion on this adventure in which he has embarked almost as a nonagenarian and received a sincere, almost endearing response: “If you were my father, I would not let you do such a thing.” That is the problem of the PP. That part of the family has gone with Vox and does not know how to convince them to return home.
